Figure 1.
Particle size of titanium powder by analysis of laser.
Figure 2.
Scanning electron micrograph of titanium powder.
Figure 3.
Particle size of niobium powder by analysis of laser.
Figure 4.
Scanning electron micrograph of niobium powder.
Table 1.
Original performance parameters of titanium powder.
Table 2.
Main composition of niobium powder (x%).
Table 3.
Parameters of the polyurethane foam.
Table 4.
Performance parameters of polyurethane.
Table 5.
Performance parameters of polyving akohol (PVA).
Figure 5.
Flow chart of preparation of porous titanium-niobium alloy.
Figure 6.
The titanium-niobium alloy specimens with different porosity.
Table 6.
Corresponding relationships between cell growth rate and grade of cell toxicity.
Figure 7.
Pore size and porosity of Ti-25Nb alloy.
(A)The titanium-niobium alloy formed porous shape with a rough surface, and its pores extended to the internal with a diameter of about 200–500 µm. (B) The pores interconnected with each other. (C) The pore of titanium-niobium alloy with 40% porosity showed maldistribution (D) The pore of titanium-niobium alloy with 70% porosity showed honeycomb shape, among which also presented part of fractures and connectivity.
Figure 8.
EDS analysis of alloy specimens.
(A–B) EDS analysis of different regions of porous Ti-25Nb alloy.
Figure 9.
Inoculation, Culture and passage of Rabbit BMMSCs.
(A) Primary BMSCs were inoculated, presented with round shape (magnification ×100). (B) There were a large number of adherent cells. Cell division could be seen at this phase (magnification ×100). (C) Within 4 to 5 days, the cells entered into logarithmic growth phase in which the amount increased and the cells arranged closely more like fibroid cells morphology (magnification ×100). (D) Within 8 to 10 days cell monolayer fused closely to 80% with swirl-like growth (magnification ×100). (E) The cells in the third generation were of the uniform morphology which grew with parallel or spiral arranging, and they became monolayer fused in 6 to 7 days (magnification ×100).
Figure 10.
Identification of Rabbit BMMSCs.
(A–C) The results of FACS respectively showed that 96% of the third-generation cells expressed CD44 and 95% of the cells expressed CD29, while only 5% of the cells expressed CD34.
Figure 11.
Detection of cell adhesion and proliferation after the cells were mixed with the alloy specimens.
(A–I) The figures respectively showed cells proliferating in the compact group at the time point of 3 h, 24 h and 72 h. The cells all attached and proliferated well (magnification ×200). (D–F) They presented the condition of cells proliferating in the 40% porosity group at the time point of 3 h, 24 h and 72 h. The cells proliferating speed is faster than the compact group (magnification ×200). (G–I) The cells proliferating speed is fastest among the three groups, however, cells interconnected confluently in the 70% porosity group at the time point of 72 hours (magnification ×200).
Figure 12.
Scanning Electron microscopy of cells co-cultured with alloy specimens at different time point.
(A) After the cells had been inoculated for 3 hours, rabbit bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells which were regular elongated-spindly shaped adhered to the surface of the alloy with 70% porosity. (B) After 24 hours, pseudopodia-like protrusions of the cells appeared, interrelated between each other with the cells tightly attached to the surface of the alloy with 70% porosity. (C–D) After 72 hours inoculated, cells began growing to the inside pores of the alloys with 70% porosity (C) and 40% porosity (D). (E–F) The cells were growing from the edge to inside of pores of the 70% porosity group in which extracellular matrix also could be seen.
Table 7.
Results of MTT tests for porous Ti-25Nb groups and control group.
Figure 13.
Comparison of IL-6 level in different groups.
Table 8.
Comparison of IL-6 levels in different groups at different time points (pg×100/ml).